Since I no longer live at home with my parents, I was told on Friday morning that Stubby hadn't eaten since Thursday morning, I started to worry, but later when I was informed she hadn't had any fluids either, it was kind of hard not to panic!! I found out after she had passed that two days before she had an incident of muscle paralysis - she was grooming herself - her back - and she got 'stuck' in that position, my sister had to help her get out of that position; but after that she seemed fine - back to playing, whining, playing follow the leader. By the time I got there, she looked spent, her nose was dry, her breathing was quick and shallow - I had a feeling that she may not make it home. At the clinic, her temperature was normal, her weight was pretty low - she had lost quite a bit of weight over the last 1.5 years, her pulse rate was a little low (138 - the vet found it strange), her thyroid glands were slightly enlarged, her heart was about twice its normal size, and she presented with a very loud heart murmur (theres never been a murmur detected at her last vet exam), but her lungs where clear (no indication of fluid) and until Thursday night had no decrease in activity level (she was an extremely active cat). The vet really had no answers. Her symptoms where a mix and match of an array of diseases, regardless, her breathing was worsening - even with sitting in an oxygen tank for more then two hours. We made the decision to not have her suffer anymore. It was the hardest decision I have ever had to make for her.
When I visited her in her oxygen tank, she was so excited to see me, she had her tail vibrating, and she purred in infamous purr (we always use to joke that people in China could hear her). It was really stressful for her to do any tests and they shortened her breathing even more; they did an x-ray - planned on doing two sided plate view, they could only manage to do one before she started to fade.
Once my family arrived, she struggled to sit up once more for my mom and dad, and bob her head as she has always done in her way of greeting everyone when they arrived home. She looked so peaceful in the end. I don't know what the underlying cause of her demise is, she's always had so many factors against her, but she was always so happy and strong, even in the end when all of us weren't.
